'Long dance' that ended in a deal to avoid a government shutdown
By: Glenn Thrush and Jonathan Allen
April 9, 2011 02:50 AM EST

The low point may have come Thursday night.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) had spent more than an hour meeting with President Barack Obama in the Oval Office, inching toward a deal to avert a shutdown, but he kept insisting that it include a prohibition against federal funding for Planned Parenthood.

That was a nonstarter for Obama. As the meeting was breaking up, Vice President Joe Biden told the speaker, in no uncertain terms, that his demand was unacceptable. If that became the deal breaker, Biden said, he would “take it to the American people,” who would presumably punish the GOP for shutting down the government over an ideological issue.

“They were faced with a choice — they would either have to give in or shut down the government,” said a senior administration official, describing how the negotiations went from there.

In the end, Boehner agreed to a package of $38.5 billion in cuts, a significant victory for a man who said his goal was to extract as much as possible from the federal budget. He also won limited victories on a handful of policy riders attached to the bill. But Boehner was forced to abandon some major demands, including Planned Parenthood, restrictions on the Environmental Protection Agency and efforts to restrict Obama’s health reform bill.

Administration officials cast the deal as proof Obama and Boehner can forge a longer-lasting relationship to negotiate the perils of divided government, but it was a rough week punctuated by several near deals, a few blow-ups and a resolution that came 90 minutes before the government shuttered.

“It’s been a long dance,” said an Obama aide involved in the talks.

The tense negotiations have been less a high-stakes game of chicken — like most budget wrangling — than an effort to jerry-rig a deal that would be acceptable to House conservatives, Senate Democrats and a president intent on proving he could pull off a bipartisan deal for the second time in five months.

Compared to Boehner’s juggling act, the president’s objectives have been relatively simple: Craft a bipartisan deal that proved he was willing to make deep spending cuts, look like a grownup, and hold the line on GOP challenges to core Democratic programs.

The drama ended — for now — shortly before 11 p.m. on Friday, when Boehner announced the deal after what he said was “a lot of discussion and a long fight.”

Next up: negotiations over raising the debt ceiling, which Texas Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison has described as “Armageddon.”

That challenge would be even more daunting if the budget deal had collapsed — as it nearly did Thursday night and in the early hours of Friday morning.

After Boehner left the White House, negotations were supposed to resume on the staff level. Although the Planned Parenthood issue was still in dispute, Obama’s aides, led by Hill liaison Rob Nabors and budget chief Jack Lew, believed Boehner had agreed to a broad overall cut — about $78 billion in annual terms.

Yet when the groggy delegation arrived in the speaker’s Capitol office, they were greeted by Boehner’s chief of staff, Barry Jackson, who told them he wanted to see cuts in excess of $80 billion, administration officials say.

Obama’s senior aides didn’t view the setback so much as a breach of faith as an unsettling reminder that Boehner — as companionable and trustworthy as they regard him to be — was an unpredictable bargaining partner who didn’t quite have the measure of his membership. Now, instead of having agreement on everything except the riders, they had to re-litigate the size of the cuts.

By the time the sun rose on a rainy Friday morning, Obama and his staff were completely fed up and exhausted, according to people familiar with the process. At around 10:45 Obama called Boehner with a firm message.

“I’m the president of the United States, and you’re the speaker of the House,” he told Boehner, according to a senior administration official. “We are the two most consequential leaders in the U.S. government. We had a discussion last night, and the [staff] negotiations don’t reflect that.”

For his part, Boehner spokesman Brendan Buck said the speaker never made any commitment or suggested there was ever a deal: “It became clear very quickly they weren’t serious about making real cuts,” he said. “When talks broke up around 3 a.m., it was still over inadequate spending cuts —– both the number and the composition.”

Boehner and Obama talked three more times during the day, making steady progress, despite the increasing acrimony of their public surrogates — and Boehner himself.

“Almost all of the policy issues have been dealt with,” he told reporters at the Capitol. “The big issue is over the spending ... We’re not going to roll over and sell out the American people like has been done time and time again in Washington ... We’re damn serious.”

But privately, the two sides kept on talking.

The intensity and frequency of their communication was new. For weeks, Obama largely held himself back from direct negotiations, leaving the heavy lifting to Boehner, Reid and aides Lew and Nabors, chief of staff Bill Daley, and Biden.

Obama spoke with Boehner directly only twice between March 4 and April 2, prompting complaints from both parties that he waited too long to wade into the process. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) at one point accused Obama of having “failed to lead” as the government lurched toward a shutdown — and Boehner himself used almost the same language earlier in the week.

The talks, which began in earnest on Monday and ratcheted up as the wek dragged on, followed a familiar and, to the White House, depressing pattern: Obama would demand that Boehner abandon dozens of the riders — including the Planned Parenthood cuts, the health care reform rollback, and the EPA restrictions.
For leverage, Boehner crafted a short-term spending measure that included long-term funding for the Pentagon — a move Republicans hoped would force Obama into accepting a third temporary spending bill. On Thursday, the Office of Management and Budget responded unequivocally — Obama would veto any such measure.

As the hours passed on Friday and the midnight deadline to prevent a shutdown drew near, there were encouraging signs that the Planned Parenthood issue could be overcome.

Rep. Chris Smith, a leading abortion foe who once ran the New Jersey Right to Life Committee, blasted Planned Parenthood but declined to say whether he could accept a bill that didn’t end its federal funding. Sens. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), both with impeccable records in opposing abortion, said Republicans should take the spending cuts agreed to by the White House and leave social policy “riders” alone.

So, too, did the Wisconsin freshman, Sen. Ron Johnson, a tea party favorite.

“I encourage all my colleagues — Democrats and Republicans — to stay focused on the issue: restoring fiscal sanity,” Johnson said in a statement. “We need to get past this year’s budget, and move onto the more serious discussion of our nation’s long-term fiscal health.”

It all added up to a major turning point. By saying it was better to keep a scaled-back government operating than shut it down over a quixotic bid to win on a hot-button social issue, they were giving cover to other skittish Republicans.

And in the end, Democrats agreed to about two-thirds of the spending cuts Boehner initially requested, signing off on nearly $40 billion worth. For every fit and start that frustrated the White House and Senate Democrats, Boehner had won another few billion dollars.

For several hours Friday evening, Republican leaders and aides vetted a final White House counterproposal. Some time after 8 p.m., a small clutch of the top Republican leaders and their aides gathered in Boehner’s suite of offices on the second floor of the Capitol to discuss the latest offer — and their plan of action.

“Sounds like we’re probably a go,” one GOP aide told POLITICO as the plan was being reviewed.

At 9 p.m. Republican Conference Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) told reporters there was no deal yet and that the rank and file would have to be called together to discuss the latest proposal. After gaining their approval, Boehner emerged to make his brief announcement that a deal had been struck.

Obama made his own statement at the White House a few minutes later.

But there’s still no guarantee that some new snag will scuttle the current deal next week — or that the compromise crafted this week makes it more likely future deals can be cut.

“It may be a good night for the future here,” said a senior administration official. “It’s a pretty important demonstration that our divided government can come together.”